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De-interlacing Issues
So, it’s been a long long time since I’ve had to deal with de-interlacing issues. I am an editor and I received footage from a shoot that has those awful interlacing lines. I’m not sure what the settings on the client’s camera was though I do know that they shot on this or one like it: https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666294245#additionalImage1%22
I received the footage on a hard-drive. The fps is 29.97, the codec h264 and the field dominance being lower. I converted the footage with compressor to prores but kept the rest of the settings the same.
Even when my sequence settings match the footage it still looks terrible (lots of lines during action). Generally I’ve been able to fix this issue by changing my field dominance to none and then applying the de-interlace filter but it just won’t do the trick this time. The de-interlace filter doesn’t seem to be doing anything if when I try switching from lower to upper, etc.
I’m super frustrated as the footage looks like crap. Any suggestions?
Thanks so much in advance!
– Amber
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20 Replies
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Where are you seeing the lines? On your video display or on your computer? You should see interlacing lines on the computer. But if your settings are correct, then you shouldn’t see any interlacing on the video display and should have very smooth motion, equivalent to shooting 60p.
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[Amber Navarrete] “I received the footage on a hard-drive. The fps is 29.97, the codec h264 and the field dominance being lower.”
If it’s HD footage then somehow the field dominance became reversed, because all interlaced HD is upper field dominant.
Also, how are you monitoring? If you are monitoring on a laptop or computer monitor, and with no TV, broadcast monitor, etc., you have to have your canvas size set to precisely 100%, otherwise you will see the interlace.
Ultimately, the reality is, you can’t judge video (especially the interlace) on a computer monitor. It’s a sure way to either miss what is there or to see what isn’t there.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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I hear what you are saying but thats the weird thing. I have all my settings correct but am still seeing the lines on my external monitor even. I have both my sequence settings and audio/video settings correct as I feed video to my TVs using a kona card and all that.
In the end, this video will be seen online so I need to be able to export without the interlacing which would usually be solved by de-interlacing. (which isn’t working)
I thought maybe there was software out there that can help bring the lines together. Or maybe I could do something with pull down rates which I don’t completely understand.
Am I screwed?
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Using the deinterlacing filter in Final Cut is the worst possible way to deinterlace footage. You’ll achieve far superior results if you simply edit in an interlaced sequence, export the finished video as a self-contained Quicktime movie (not using Quicktime conversion) and then perform deinterlacing using Compressor (with frame controls turned on). Compressor’s motion estimation provides deinterlacing results that are far superior to FCP’s simple field blending/doubling.
What is your delivery destination (web, DVD, etc.)? You only need to deinterlace if you’re delivering content for web use.
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The video is being made for the web. I’ll try using compressor to deinterlace feature to see if I get better results.
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Amber, you’re not listening… I told you the fields were reversed…
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Yea, the footage is indeed HD. I am sending out to a broadcast monitor which does look a little better but not how it should look. Is there a way to fix the reversed field dominance? It’s annoying because most of the clips are lower but a few clips are upper too. I’m not sure how they pulled that off when filming.
Thoughts?
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[Amber Navarrete] “Thoughts?”
Undoubtedly a major issue that is the source of your problem.
You have to connect the dots, all the dots, and do a forensic investigation to trace the video from the camera all the way to your timeline.
Start by doing a numbered list, with #1 being how did the video get out of the camera. Was it on tape, memory card, etc. then move on to #2, who captured it, who transcoded it, how were these things accomplished. What are your sequence settings (spell that out). Normally the fault lies in the transcoding or in the setup of the sequence, or both. We can only sort that out via a systematic approach.
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles
https://www.drwfilms.comPOST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™
A forum host of Creative COW’s Business & Marketing and Apple Final Cut Pro forums. Formerly host of the Apple Final Cut Basics, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.
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Thanks for your willingness to help – it’s much appreciated. Like I posted before, the camera that was used was an older model of this: https://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921666294245#additionalImage1%22
I received the footage on a external hard drive so I’m assuming the person just pulled the footage directly off the camera (from it’s internal flash memory) So, I don’t think any transcoding went down. It might of been a user error with the settings inside the camera.
The settings of my original footage:
Quicktime H264, 1280×720, 29.97, Square pixels, field dominance: none (yet the footage has those heavy interlace lines)The settings after I converted in compressor:
Quicktime Prores, 1280×720, 29.97, Square pixels, field dominance: I now see that compressor changed my field dominance around all wonky – it’s not suppose to adjust anything but the codec. But when I re-converted the h264 to Prores once again I’m still getting the same interlacing lines even though it says no field dominance.I’ve posted an example of my footage here: https://vimeo.com/22306174
As you can tell, I’m shining a turd on this one, cutting around some crappy camera work. Even though the footage isn’t perfect I’m hoping to get it in a good place especially starting with the interlacing issues.
Let me know if you have any other suggestions but I’m aware that I may be out of luck.
Thanks!
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The video doesn’t look so bad on vimeo but if you download the source file you can see the problem.
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